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Rules of the Mush
This page is a work in progress. Edit freely if you have more to add, and make a comment on the Talk page if you disagree with something written here. If you're a wizard, please alter as you see fit. One of the problems with having any community that's over a decade old is that a lot of rules and behavioral guidelines tend to get formed along the way and are never properly written down, as everyone who's around at the time is there for the initial explanation, and the community will fill in the new players as they arrive. This works for a while, until the rules get so old that the older players have internalized them enough, or the rules are numerous enough, that they forget to mention them. The purpose of this page is to explicitly list out the rules for both lounge conduct and RP conduct, and the expectations a player should have about their experience on GarouMUSH. Nothing is a bigger killer of floon than disappointment. After each rule listing, an explanation will be given for each rule, so as to explain the reasoning behind them. OOC Lounge Rules Read The Lounge Conduct Note Long version: Pay attention to posted rules. And don't be a dick. There is an object in the OOC lounge called "PLEASE READ. Lounge Conduct Note." Type 'look please read' to view it. The current version of the conduct note (as of this writing) is below: The Lounge is explicitly for new players and guests to log on, get introduced to the game, learn about it, brainstorm new characters, and ask questions about how to set their new characters up. Given that guests, newbies, and, may we emphasize, your fellow players, all have varying comfort levels with sensitive topics, it's best to stay, for the most part, more restrained than you might in your personal living room. In other words, it's approximately PG-13, not R. In addition, while some topics (religion, politics) are not verboten, people have felt ignored or offended in the past; step carefully there, as well. If you're offensive or problematical, a wizard will page you with a warning. If you continue to be offensive or problematical, a wizard'll @boot you. If you come back after that and (that same day) are offensive or problematical, they'll @newpassword your various characters for 6-12 hours. If you get three instances of @newpasswording, the wizcorps will give you an auto-strike. Three strikes and you're banned from the game. Don't @emit In The Lounge Long version: Don't say or do anything in the lounge that other people can see that can't easily be attributed to you. I.e., no anonymous @emitting The 'say' and 'pose' commands are used 99% of the time in the lounge, and they preface anything you might want to say with your name, so people can know who's said what. @emit sends whatever you type directly to the room, without prefixing your name or anything. There is no way for people to tell that you are the one who is speaking those lines, unless you add the indentification in yourself. At best, making unattributed @emits leads to simple confusion. At worst, unscrupulous characters can use this command to make it look like other players are doing/saying inappropriate things. If you want to perform an @emit for humor's sake, or something similar, the accepted form is to type :| '''. ''Result: ''Player1 | The four horsemen of the Apocalypse arrive. Cookies for everyone! Don't Harass People '''Long version: If someone asks you to stop paging them, stop. Also, don't be a dick. The MUSH is meant to be a haven for people to come and enjoy RP, as well as to enjoy the company of other MUSHers. However, wherever there is more than one person, there will eventually be an argument. Tempers will flare and people will start saying things that are less than civil. When this happens, people will step out of the room and try and calm down. This is the /mature/ response to getting worked up, and it is not an invitation to take your arguments to pages with them. If you have something you still want to say, say it in an @mail that they can read when everyone has calmed down a little. Also, when you're in the lounge, try and keep the levity up. We're here to relax and enjoy ourselves. Personal attacks are never ''a good idea. ''Ever ever ever. ''They make your argument look weak, and the person you're insulting is less likely to react favorably to anything you say. Stick with being calm and rational. A helpful note for people who are being harassed over pages: You can see instructions for how to stop a particular player from paging you by typing '''help page2'. RP Rules and Code of Conduct (copied from the bboards - edit for Wiki as appropriate) * Our official perspective on timewarping and double-alting: Timewarping is the practice of roleplaying a scene taking place at an agreed-upon time in the past or the future. Multi-char'ing is the practice of roleplaying one's character in two places at the same time. Multi-char'ing is always combined with timewarping (for obvious reasons), though timewarps need not necessarily involve multi-char'ing. It's important for these practices to be available to players because they are, occasionally, regrettably, necessary due to the realities of MUSH roleplay. However, it's equally important for players not to abuse these practices. Timewarps should be kept as short as possible, and should rarely if ever be set in the future. Multi-char'ing should be done only when it is absolutely necessary (multi-char'ing in order to alleviate an unavoidable scheduling conflict is fine; multi-char'ing in order to try to find some other roleplay because another scene you're currently involved in is moving slowly is not). Neither practice should be used frivolously, and players should make every effort to try to accomodate the vagaries of MUSH scheduling with the single, present incarnations of their characters before using these tools. In the unofficial perspective, although I'm obviously not going to say, "Never double alt," I would like to caution people against excessive multi-charing and in particular against excessive timewarping. Your primary scene should, when possible, be in the present, and you should be as focused on that scene as you can. (Obviously, if you're yearning for an Umbral scene, this may be timewarped; just be reasonable.) Timewarping can, potentially, lead to unpleasantness where, for example, you were RPing a scene in the present when you hadn't finished a scene in which you, say, lost an arm. Or a packmate. Even scenes set in the simultaneous present can be problematical, since your character may be experiencing things that would change their perspectives, beliefs, or state of injury. And if you're playing multiple scenes with the same character, you're obviously not going to be as focused on the one, present scene, and (though this is a personal opinion only), your RP quality may suffer. At the least, you should be focusing on the present. *'Metaposing' We discourage metaposing. Please don't include actions that would force other characters to have to read your character's mind in order for them to respond to your pose. More at http://community.livejournal.com/garoumush/130733.html. How To Survive GarouMUSH